“The functioning of our Institution is directly related to the quality of access to justice for citizens, which is why it must be subject to external controls and objective selection processes at all levels, without exception,” FENAMIP said in a statement.
“It seems to us that the time has come to put an end to the positions of trust that the National Prosecutor and the Regional Prosecutors have at their disposal to define the managerial positions, and to appoint the heads of the Investigative Units also out of trust, since it facilitates nepotism and practices at odds with the probity that must prevail in a persecuting institution , which should be an example of transparency and ethics for the rest of the country’s public institutions,” they added.
According to officials of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, “positions of trust constitute a subjective factor of appointment to choose people who make decisions related to the management of criminal prosecution in our country, which, in addition, are the highest incomes of our Institution. Therefore, they maintain, it is urgently necessary to implement an objective selection system with opposition of backgrounds and profiles of positions related to the performance of excellence that our service requires, such as senior public management or another similar and external body, for example.
According to the federation of officials of the Prosecutor General’s Office, “it is highly contradictory” that in a hierarchical and technical body “persons designated by trust” are the ones who make the operational and administrative decisions “over the career officials who have entered by public competition.”
Within the organization, they say from FENAMIP, practices such as the so-called “musical chair” are maintained, which allows former Regional Prosecutors and Executives to rotate between the different regions of the country, after finishing their period of management, without any type of public competition, generating, “an obvious distortion to the official career and allowing authorities without the necessary competences to perpetuate themselves indefinitely in the Institution , without giving objective proof of his suitability for office.”
It is worth mentioning that during these days it has been promoted by the National Association of Prosecutors, that it is the Council of Regional Prosecutors itself that gives the go-ahead to these appointments, in a clear attempt to validate the continuity of this dynamic in the Institution. However, for officials of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, “this proposal does not add objectivity and less weighting of personal merit in such appointments, but would promote the continuity of a caste system, entrenched within the Public Prosecutor’s Office.” This, they add, “has been favored by the absence of checks and balances and the lack of external controls on the institution that are not linked to the governments of the day in our country.”
“For this reason, our Federation is committed to defining curricular profiles for these important positions and that they are elected by external bodies and in this we call on the conventional constituents, to study the real reforms that our institution requires to avoid perpetuating these bad practices, since it is urgent to review the mechanisms of appointment for the positions of National Prosecutor and Regional Prosecutors , adding tests of competencies and skills that are essential to optimally develop their functions.”
Finally, FENAMIP called on the Constitutional Convention to be invited to its sessions and to listen to its proposals for reforms to achieve a Public Prosecutor’s Office at the service of the citizenry.
